At a briefing given to Japanese press about Windows Live, Tetuya Onoda (Windows Live Director) held up a nice big picture of the new Windows Live Homepage that looks set to replace the existing personalised Live.com page. Featuring the new Wave 2 UI, the portal acts as a true Windows Live Home, featuring modules that allow you to monitor and access the Windows Live services that matter to you. A few examples of this cross-service integration are:

Providing access to your emails and contacts through Windows Live Hotmail

Showing the upcoming calendar items from your Windows Live Calendar

Allowing blog and photo publishing direct to your Windows Live Space

Showing the status of Windows Live OneCare installed on your home pc

Also of note is the inclusion of links to Folders/Skydrive and Windows Live Events, though whether any interaction is available directly from your homepage remains to be seen. Users can also customise the weather display shown in the top left of the screen. We’d love to have the ability to remotely run a OneCare virus scan or upload a file to Skydrive, however as we saw with the original Live.com development, good performance right from the initial availability is very important.

As always, the appearance and functionality of the final product may differ slightly from that shown. Currently http://home.live.com/ redirects to the personalised live.com homepage.

The press briefing also mentioned some other juicy bits, including single sign-on for Windows Live ID (sign in to one passport and be able to use any others you might have), Windows Live Skydrive, and Windows Live Drive. Of course as with Windows Vista SP1 they could all be typos, maybe.